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Sports

Mira Costa Still In Playoff Race, After Relay Home

Mustangs advance to the quarterfinals of the CIF-Southern Section Division 2 playoffs, executing perfectly to cut down a run at the plate and then scoring five runs, all of it coming in a decisive fifth inning to beat No. 4-seeded Cypress

With the score tied in the fifth inning and a runner on first base, Cypress High designated hitter Zack Ortiz drilled a liner into the gap in left center field. And, odd as it might sound, that turned out to be the jolt that propelled the Mira Costa Mustangs to an 8-3 victory over the Centurions on Tuesday and into the quarterfinals of the CIF-Southern Section Division 2 playoffs.

With that runner rounding second and on his way to scoring a go-ahead run, Mustangs' center fielder Anthony Lombardo caught up to the ball at the wall, wheeled and threw a perfect relay to shortstop Kyle Demarco, who threw a perfect one-hopper to catcher Jackson Morrow.

The Centurions' Rudy Ledesma didn't hesitate rounding third or coming down the line and went barreling into Morrow – in high school baseball, the runners are required to slide. But Morrow held onto the ball, Ledesma was out, and just to make sure he knew it the Mustangs' catcher held the ball up in front of him and roared while his teammates came bouncing off the field.

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''I don't hold anything against that guy – he's playing the game hard just like we are,'' Morrow said. ''I mean, a little contact doesn't bother me. But that gets us fired up when someone tries to do stuff like that. For a catcher, that's the ultimate. That's the best thing in the world. To have a guy try to take you out like that and just come up holding the ball … it's a great feeling.''

It spread very quickly. In the bottom half of that inning, Bret Collins led off and reached base when a breaking pitch hit him in the lower leg. Lucas Whitehill followed by driving an 0-2 pitch over the wall in left field to give the Mustangs' a 5-3 lead, adding to a school-record he established three weeks ago at Redondo Union with his ninth home run this season.

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And by the time Cypress, the Empire League champion and No. 4 seed in Division 2, could get out of the inning, Mira Costa had added on three more runs to break the game open. Kris Cayton drove in a run with a ground ball, the Mustangs picked up a run when Dalton Barge stole home on the back end of a double steal, and Sean Isaac drove in a run with a single.

The Mustangs, who were 4-11 at one point this season, will play at La Mirada on Friday in the quarterfinal round. The Matadores rode ace Daniel Poncedeleon to a 2-1 victory over Rialto to advance, racking up their 13th victory in a row.

Mira Costa used two of its three best pitchers in getting past Cypress, with Drew Van Orden going 6 1/3 innings and making really only one mistake, which first baseman Zack Belanger ripped over the wall in right field in the third inning for a two-run home run.

Robert Parucha came on to record the final two outs.

But as good as Van Orden and Parucha were on the mound in checking Cypress, this victory came back to the relay throws, the collision at the plate and the reverberations from it.

The Mustangs had made a few mistakes before that perfectly executed relay home - they had a runner thrown out at the plate on a mixup on the bases, made an error that led to a run - but made none after it.

''It was enormous. I mean, that was the real deal. That fired us up a lot,'' said Demarco, who also had two hits in the game.

''It was like, see-saw, battling, and then I don't know the last time I saw a double and a relay out win a game, but that won the game 100 percent,'' Coach Cassidy Olson said. ''That changed all the momentum in the world. Lombardo threw a perfect strike, Kyle threw a perfect strike, and then the guts of Jackson to sit there and not retaliate.

''I thought it was a cheap shot. The guy should have been thrown out – it's the high school rule, you can't crash into the guy. But he did a great job.''

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